Gotta love it . My son is stopping by after work and I'm showing this to him. (MY move is stuck on high center but -there's always tomorrow til for afew more days)
not a captive
JoinedPosts by not a captive
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7
Public service announcement: If someday I post something annoying and you get mad at me and retaliate in kind
by gubberningbody inand can't remember either what i might have posted, or how you might have been annoyed and responded, so that it seems like i'm either ignoring you intentionally, or i'm holding a grudge.... don't worry about it because that can't happen.. i have add and only the most recent and shiny objects holds my interest...for a minute.. oh, and don't let this dissuade you from continuing to imagine i've remembered anything you've said or even have a clue who you might be, even if i don't and can't.... keep the home fires burning anyway.. just because you can't do or say anything i'll find memorable in any way shouldn't make you feel small or inferior, even if you are.. what was i talking about again?.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxuudpnbkjk.
you suck cage!!!
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347
Why do all intelligent Christians disobey Jesus?
by StoneWall inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-slagzjmdu.
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not a captive
About the value of perfect doctrine and real Christians--
Christians I have learned the most from are ones who are simple in their faith and ignore doctrine. When they hear what Jesus says they try to do it. Witnesses don't really engage with them. Or if they do, they laugh at them later. These foolish people didn't have the "Truth".
Thirty years ago I wasn't a Witness. I didn't think it mattered where I went to church, and at the time I thought that that's what I should do once I "found the Lord" (to use an expression that roughly describes a salvation experience) So I walked to a country church with a baby in my arms and my little girls tagging along with me. I didn't know it but I was about to hear a backwoods woman do the preaching there. She was kind of an on-call preacher who visited little group of Christians who met here-and-there in the community buildings in the rurals thereabout. Her name was Daisy and she was old then. Her husband no longer beat her for her love of Jesus.She said she just sang and prayed for him until he just gave up on drink and trying to beat Jesus out of her.
She was very matter of fact about her mission and how she supported it since she had no income or help for her ministry from her husband. In the early days she put gas in the truck she drove by stopping at every fresh road kill she saw, skinning and dressing the pelt.Skunks too, she said. She sold the pelts (Until 15 years ago Madison Co. Arkansas still had a local pelt trade.) )That's how she had preached. She would accept "love" offerings as they called the informal collection for gas or mony gifts. But she would come at her own expense.
She was non-doctrinaire. She reiterated the gospels, she made "altar calls"for those who needed to be prayed over or who wanted to commit to the Lord. But you had to make good yourself on a baptism if you got some one to do it. She lived the Gospel like Jesus was resurrected the day before. But she was really down to earth.
She didn't know any better.
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347
Why do all intelligent Christians disobey Jesus?
by StoneWall inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-slagzjmdu.
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not a captive
Exjdub,
You didn't direct your comment to me but it made me think, so here goes--
Something to think about: If it truly is a PERSONAL relationship, then why do so many Christians feel the need to tell the rest of the world how to live? Kinda makes it not so PERSONAL at that point, wouldn't you think?
Good point. Paul talked to Christians about their conduct but thought they should not pick on each other about personal things--like what they eat, for instance. He told them more or less told --What difference does it make? "The meat for the belly the belly for meat--both will perish in time."
Christians were discouraged to engage in behavior that broke down good order in the home and the larger community. It was seen as not only an affront to the community but put the word of God in a bad light--Drunkeness ,having sex with your step-mother, brawling, non-support of your family, and the like.
But the idea that Christians tell the rest of the WORLD how to live? The way it seems to me (I'm trying to listen to Jesus)is that we are silly to tell the rest of the world how to live--but then it seems just as silly totell another Christian how to live. In either case we can only tell them how we see the matter in light of our own faith. But we are explicitly told not to judge the world--And that makes sense to me.
The scriptures say there will be offenses committed by Christians--Jesus said that would happen at Mark 9:342-50. But he didn't outline an official judicial committee for resolving it. I know JWs say that Mat.18:15-17 is an official outline for the way do things. But it seems that Jesus said if personal troubles don't get resolved privately, then they go public ,into the open community. There is nothing hidden anymore. And if a person is found to be in the wrong and doesn't make things right, then it is up to the individuals in the community to withhold their close association. If it is a serious offense then you don't have to play card with him anymore or let your kids have a sleepover at his house.
But this is not as it is done in the JWcongregation--no one knows what is going on behind closed KH doors , and that is not ,IMO, what Jesus wanted. It looks like he wanted more transparency. When so-and-so quit doing the rotten things and started showing Christian conduct maybe he got invited to play cards again. Christian conversation would resemble the discussions on this board a lot more ,IMO. Or at least I hope so.
We can't do all that with non-Christian problems--not entirely. They don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, so they won't have the same point of reference as a bunch of Christians that you are around. But the priciples would still be useful. At least that is how it seems to me. But there are courts for when all else fails in both cases.
Your thoughts?
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347
Why do all intelligent Christians disobey Jesus?
by StoneWall inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-slagzjmdu.
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not a captive
DD, When was Christianity determined to be solely reliant on the scriptures? I know you are quoting Martin Luther, but are you following Luther or of Jesus?
The reason I ask is this: Luther was reacting to the Catholic Church's various accretions to the word of God. Like indulgences.
But even the Apostles had to deal with sorting the Law of Moses from the new Christian freedom. Acts 15:28,29 cut out a lot of scripture. I'll bet there were slews of newly minted Christians that were in divine ignorance of all they were missing--(though the big issue they knew about involved a sharp bit of flint)
Did the apostles ignore the scriptures, did they reject the word of God?
When the Bible talks about us having the "mind of Christ", what does it mean?
What practical information is there for you or me in using a word like predestination and pretending we know how it works?
Church Fathers on the doctrine of predestination
The early church fathers consistently uphold the freedom of human choice. This position was crucial in the Christian confrontation with Cynicism and some of the chief forms of Gnosticism, such as Manichaeism, which taught that man is by nature flawed and therefore not responsible for evil in himself or in the world. At the same time, belief in human responsibility to do good as a precursor to salvation and eternal reward was consistent. The decision to do good along with God's aid pictured a synergism of the human will and God's will. The early church Fathers taught a doctrine of conditional predestination. [6]
Augustine of Hippo marks the beginning of a system of thought that denies free will and affirms that salvation needs an initial input by God in the life of every person. While his early writings affirm that God's predestinating grace is granted on the basis of his foreknowledge of the human desire to pursue salvation, this changed after 396. His later position affirmed the necessity of God granting grace in order for the desire for salvation to be awakened.
Augustine's position raised objections. Julian bishop of Eclanum, expressed that Augustine was bringing Manichee thoughts into the church [7] . For Vincent of Lérins, this was a disturbing innovation. [8] This new tension eventually became obvious with the confrontation between Augustine and Pelagius culminating in condemnation of Pelagianism (as interpreted by Augustine) at the Council of Ephesus in 431. The British monk Pelagius denied Augustine's view of "predestination" in order to affirm that salvation is achieved by an act of free will.
The influence of Augustine also then showed in translations of the bible from that time on; variations which are not in themselves visible in the syntax or grammar of the New Testament Greek text. Perhaps the best example of this in the Vulgate is the addition of 'prae' to 'ordinati' in Acts 13:48 which is there only to give the idea this was God who did this. Later translations show this influence of the doctrine by the additions of the word 'his' in Romans 8:28 and 11:22 all suggesting an interpretation consistent with unconditional election.
Augustine's formulation is neither complete nor universally accepted by Christians. But his system laid the foundation onto virgin ground for the then later writers and innovators of the Reformation period.
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Why do all intelligent Christians disobey Jesus?
by StoneWall inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-slagzjmdu.
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not a captive
Am I wrong, or am I going to die in a few years--regardless of my faith?
So what's next if I am convinced that God is loving and Jesus is the greatest thing since sliced bread? If he's all powerful and he is going to make hurts go away. I don't care how he does it really.
When I had a kidney stone they fixed me up with some kind of stuff in my vein . I still don't know what it was, but I'm glad they gave it to me.
How hard is it to know and reject Christ?--It's pretty hard is my guess. You have to know Christ or how can you reject him? Mat. 12:31
Something that I would be afraid would get me there would be falsifying the scriptures about him and then forcing others to repeat doctrines that separate us from even trying to know the Christ and his Father. That would scare me, to do that.
I want find out what good things God has in store--not for me so much, because my time at the "fair" hasn't been all that bad.
But for a lot of humanity--God will have to do some remedial work of healing . He knows that I do expect more than that--more than just painkilling death.
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Standing up for myself, a lonely stand
by troubled mind ini have learned in my life that i am the only one i can trust to stand up for myself .. many times i wished others would have 'had my back', like when i was seven and my favorite teacher committed wrongful contact with my class....we didn't know the term pedofile back then , and children were not taken serious when they made complaints about teachers .
i wished my mom had been more protective and saved me from some ugly situations .
i knew at 10 yrs of age that wasn't going to be the case .
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not a captive
The elders still have the chance to be loving--now they just have an excuse to stop being "loving". As if they had ever started.
Jesus went to those who were hurt. They didn't all just have to find him.
You've got a lot of 'you' left in you, from what I'm hearing . You'll come back to you. It's been happening to me .
But we were sick for a long time ,TM.
Hang in there and oras you prefer. Maeve
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No new insights, but when I consider the social and psychological factors which led me to BEGIN to study
by gubberningbody ini recall the following:.
1. i was dating someone who was having conversations with jw's.. 2. no one i spoke to at work really seemed to know anything, so i decided to go as an observer with my gf.. 3. after observing them for about 6 months it became clear to me that they believed it.. .
if #1 and #2 hadn't taken place i wouldn't have become one.
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not a captive
Delilah gets her foot in the door!
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347
Why do all intelligent Christians disobey Jesus?
by StoneWall inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-slagzjmdu.
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not a captive
I completely am on board with you, Gladiator. I mean it.
I relate to a story I heard of someone in the same boat as you and I.Just because I relate to it doesn't mean anything, does it--but I'll tell it.
A man in an occupied territory got a message from something that claimed to be an angel. The thing told the man that he was selected to deliver his people from oppression. The guy wasn't going to buy it out of hand (self-doubt?, didn't believe in angels). In fact he told the angel that he knd of thought God had cut out on him and his peple anyway. So,In best rationalist style he laid a fleece out , not once but twice and told God to do certain thing with it to show him whether or not he was really there. Then he was willing to listen.
You know the story.
We don't believe unless God will access us at some level. What level? I had a higher threshold than a lot of believers. But like they say of training mules compared to training horses--they may be more resistant to instruction but they remember the lesson well.
Faith does involve some risk and I do believe it involves a direct inquirey.
Even a scientist washes his hands and disinfects the impliments surrounding the experiment.
But one thing--I never expected the "answer" I got from God. We can't predict the outcome.
I am not shy about sharing my personal experience with anyone who asks about it. But I recognize that nobody else's story made me believe in God any more than reading the gospels now makes a believer of every reader. Gideon's story is just a story--unless you are Gideon.
Otherwise wouldn't I believe that good doctrine makes good Christians?
Maeve
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Gratitude from a long time lurker!
by Thetis ini cannot begin to tell you how grateful i am to you!
you reassured me while i was one of the walking wounded.
you know that line from the movie "shadowlands", when the student says to c.s.
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not a captive
Thetis, Thanks for telling something of yourself.
For a while as I read your story I thought you were a young sister I knew who had the same thing happen to her at your age. The elders' meeting she went through was just as you described it --a horrible personal assault on a young girl. She is gone from the JWs noe and her mother,still a JW, feels the burden of guilt and was not able to support her. But her dad is not a JW.
Please continue to feel free here. We cherish our freedom so much that sometimes we are a little abrasive. Don't worry---And give as good as you get!
Maeve
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347
Why do all intelligent Christians disobey Jesus?
by StoneWall inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-slagzjmdu.
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not a captive
Leaving,
The shibboleths of non-material doctrine are the very things that people got burnt alive for: for instance: Jesus bread IS his flesh, wine IS his blood.
But how we personally act after making our profession of faith--That is what is behind Jesus' words perhaps--By their fruits you will know them? And these practical teachings--love you neighbor as yourself--aren't these less debatable?
And finally, Isn't it wonderfull that Jesus said "But the one who does not know[his master's will] and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much more will be asked."